Teacher Edition
Fantastic
Frog Facts
Written by Sarah O’Neil
alphakids
Horwitz Education
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Publications Pty Ltd
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Australia
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United Kingdom
Published edition
© Eleanor Curtain
Publishing 2003
First published 2003
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Developed by
Eleanor Curtain Publishing
Text: Jenny Feely
Consultant: Susan Hill
Designed by
Alexander Stitt
Production by
Publishing Solutions
Printed in Hong Kong
How to use this book
?
Before reading: Talkthrough
Talk through the book with the children. Encourage
them to predict the text from the cover and the
pictures, and to think about the information they
provide. Direct the children’s attention to aspects of
the text that may challenge them. Support the children
to deal with these challenges by asking the
Talkthrough questions on each page.
During reading: Observe and support
Observe the children as they read. Encourage them to
monitor their own reading as they comprehend the
text. As needed, support children by assisting them to
discover and use reading strategies and cues to solve
problems and respond to reading challenges that arise
in the text. Interruptions to the child’s reading should
be minimal and focused on a specified learning need.
After reading: Comprehension, returning to
the text, responding and writing links
To further develop children’s understanding of the
text, select from activities found on page 12 and the
inside back cover. These whole text, sentence and word
level activities reinforce the teaching focus of this
book. Assessment ideas are provided to assist with
planning for further teaching.
ISBN 0 7253 2830 4
Pack ISBN 0 7253 2772 3
(6 Student Books + 1 Teacher
Edition)
123456789
03 04 05
Text highlights
Vocabulary
• Question and answer book about frogs
• Photographic sequence shows the frog’s life
cycle
• Captions provide additional information
• An index is provided
slimy skin, webbed feet, toads, frogs, swamps,
water, desert, hatch, eggs, tadpoles, tails,
tongues, skins, shed, sticky toes
Setting the context
Ask: What kind of animal is a
frog? Where do frogs live?
What do they eat and drink?
How do they move? What else
do you know about frogs?
What else would you like to
know about frogs?
Discuss these questions
noting any questions on the
board for future reference.
Fantastic
Frog Facts
Background information
Frogs are amphibians and
begin their lives in the water
as tadpoles. As they mature
their bodies undergo huge
changes until they become
frogs. Frogs are insectivores.
They are able to live in
many different
environments.
alphakids
Introducing the book
This book is about frogs. It
tells us some amazing facts
about how frogs eat,
breathe and grow and
change.
Fantastic
Frog Facts
Written by Sarah O’Neil
Written by Sarah O’Neil
alphakids
Front cover
Look at the cover together.
What do you notice about this frog?
What is it like?
Point out the title and the author’s name.
Title page
Read the title together.
Discuss the purpose of the title page.
What is this frog like? How is it the same as
the frog on the cover? How is it different?
Fantastic Frog Facts Pages 2–5
?
Talkthrough
Discuss the contents page.
How is a contents page organised? What is it for?
Read through the headings. Point out that each heading is
a question.
What does this tell us about how the book will be written?
Point out that a contents page helps you to choose where
to start reading a book, and that you don’t have to read
from the front to the back.
Look at pages 4–5. Point out the caption under the
photograph on page 4.
What is this piece of writing called? What does it tell us? In
this book a lot of extra information is provided in the
captions. They all start with the words ‘Did you know…?’
This caption tells us that toads are frogs too. Did you know
that?
Observe and support
Does the child use a range of information on the page to
support their reading?
You read, ‘Frogs have two big eyes, long back legs, slimy
skin and webbed feet.’ What did you check to make sure
that the word was ‘slimy’?
2
Contents
What are frogs? 4
Where do frogs live? 6
How do baby frogs grow? 8
How do frogs catch food? 10
How do frogs drink? 11
How do frogs move? 12
Why do frogs hide? 14
Index 16
What are frogs?
Frogs are animals.
Frogs have two big eyes,
long back legs, slimy skin
and webbed feet.
4
Did you know that toads are frogs too?
5
3
Fantastic Frog Facts Pages 6–7
?
Talkthrough
Point out the that the heading on page 6 is a question.
What will we find out about on this page? How do you
know?
What kinds of places do frogs live in?
Look at page 7.
What information does the caption tell us?
Observe and support
Can the child use information in the photographs and
text to understand new vocabulary?
What is a swamp? What helped you to work that out?
4
Where do frogs live?
Frogs live in many parts of the world.
Most frogs live in swamps.
Some frogs can live in the desert.
6
Did you know that most frogs begin life in water,
but spend the rest of their lives living on land?
7
5
Fantastic Frog Facts Pages 8–9
?
Talkthrough
This page has four photographs across the top of the page.
What do you think the author is trying to tell us about in
these photographs? How will you read the writing
underneath?
Point out that each sentence is directly related to the
photograph above it.
Observe and support
Can the child use the text to interpret the information
contained in the photographs?
What are frogs’ eggs like? How do you know?
6
How do baby frogs grow?
Baby frogs hatch
from eggs and live
in water.
Baby frogs are called
tadpoles.
As they get bigger they
grow legs
and lose their tails.
Then they are frogs.
Did you know
that it takes
12–16 weeks
for a tadpole to
become a frog?
8
9
7
Fantastic Frog Facts Pages 10–13
?
Talkthrough
Look at the frogs on pages 10–11.
What do you notice about these frogs?
The book tells us that frogs use their eyes to help them
swallow. It also says that frogs can drink through their skins.
Point out the photograph of the frog on page 13.
How far do you think this frog can jump? Where did you look
to find out this information? What part of its body helps it to
jump that far?
Observe and support
Does the child check what they read with the phonic
information on the page?
Point out the word ‘webbed’.
How did you know what that word was? What did you check
at the start of the word? What did you look for at the end of
the word? What else did you check?
8
How do frogs catch food?
How do frogs drink?
Frogs eat small animals.
Frogs drink water through their skin.
They need to keep their skin wet.
Most frogs use their tongues
to catch food.
Did you know that frogs shed their skins
and then eat them?
10
Did you know that frogs sink their eyes into their
11
heads to help them swallow their food?
How do frogs move?
Frogs have strong legs
that are good for jumping.
They have webbed feet
that help them to swim.
Did you know that some frogs have sticky toes
and they use them to stick to things?
12
Did you know that some frogs can jump
as far as twenty times their own length?
13
9
Fantastic Frog Facts Pages 14–16
?
Talkthrough
Turn to pages 14–15.
This page tells us that frogs have enemies. What enemies do
you think they might have? How might frogs keep themselves
safe from their enemies?
Turn to page 16 and point out the features of the index.
How is an index organised? How do you use it?
You may like to demonstrate how to use an index to find
information.
Observe and support
Can the child read the text fluently?
I liked the way that sounded when you read it. It made it
easy for me to understand.
10
Did you know
Why do frogs hide?
Frogs are food for many animals.
Even other frogs will eat them.
Frogs hide to stay safe.
14
that some frogs
hide from enemies
by changing colour
to look like their
surroundings?
15
Index
desert 6
eyes 4
feet 4
legs 4, 12
skin 4, 11
swamps 6
tadpoles 8
tongues 10
16
11
Fantastic Frog Facts
Being a meaning maker
Being a text user
Encourage the children to support
their answers with evidence from the
book as they discuss these questions:
How do baby frogs grow and change?
Why do frogs need to stay moist?
Why might frogs be endangered?
Children could investigate the use of
captions.
How do you know that some writing is a
caption? What do captions tell us?
Children could explore the use of an
index.
How is an index organised? How do you
use an index?
Being a code breaker
Children may like to explore the
following language features:
• The blend ‘fr’: frog, from.
• The rime ‘og’: frog, bog, dog, cog,
fog, hog, jog, log.
12
Being a text critic
Is the information in this book
accurate? How could we check?
Responding to text
Writing links
Children could make a concept
web showing all of the things
they have learned about frogs. This
could be used as the basis for writing
a report about frogs.
Shared writing
Discuss the features of labelled
diagrams. List these features on the
board. Together make a labelled
diagram of a tadpole. Discuss the use
of pointers, labels, and the type of
illustration used.
Children could work in
cooperative pairs to make a
model of a good place for a frog to
live. Supply Plasticine, leaves, small
stones and water. Encourage the use
of labels and captions to explain the
features of the frog’s habitat.
Independent writing
Children could make labelled
diagrams of frogs showing their
features and explaining how the frog
uses each part. For example, ‘Frogs
catch food with their tongues.’
Children could make lists of
words with the blend ‘fr’: frog,
from, frown, froth, free, freeze, fridge.
Assessment
Can the child:
• Explain the structure of the book? (question and answer)
• Understand the photographic sequence of the frog’s life cycle?
• Explain what a frog is?
• Explain why the ‘Did you know…?’ captions were included in the book?
whole text activity
sentence activity
word activity
Fantastic
Frog Facts
alphakids
Written by Sarah O’Neil
Teacher
Edition
Topic: Living things
Curriculum link: Science
Text type: Question and answer
Reading level: 14
Word count: 125
Vocabulary: slimy skin, webbed feet, toads,
frogs, swamps, water, desert, hatch, eggs, tadpoles,
tails, tongues, skins, shed, sticky toes
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